


Nowhere to Go but Here

by FictionalKnight (Northern_Star)



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-29
Updated: 2009-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Star/pseuds/FictionalKnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having nowhere else to go, Dick hangs around the entrance to the Batcave...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nowhere to Go but Here

**Author's Note:**

> Set toward the end of Nightwing: Year One.

Dick sits on top of a brick wall, right near the secret passage that leads to the entrance to the Batcave. He's been there in the darkness for what seems like hours now, surveilling the passageway, waiting for something - or someone - to come in or out.

He's wearing the brand new costume Alfred sent him, for the very first time, and he doesn't feel completely comfortable in it. He hasn't really broken it in yet, obviously, but it's mostly because he's still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that these are his colors now. He misses the red, green and yellow of his old uniform. He misses the cape, too... It would be great as a windbreaker right now, he thinks with a sigh.

All of a sudden, someone lands with a soft thump beside him on the wall. Startled out of his musings, Dick immediately looks to his right, and finds himself staring into Batgirl's clear blue eyes.

"Hey there, Man Wonder," she says with a smile. "What are you doing sitting around here?"

He shrugs. "Guess I'm not as well hidden as I thought, huh?"

"I was testing these out," she tells him and she lowers a pair of goggles in front of her eyes. "Infrared."

"Ah. Still, _he_ would be disappointed. As usual..."

Batgirl frowns and she pulls the goggles down to her neck. "I see you're still sulking." At Nightwing's noncommittal grunt - which reminds her all too well of Batman - she repeats her original question, "What are you doing sitting around here for, anyway?"

"Just...looking," he says, and he turns his head back toward the secret passage.

"Uh huh. And just what are you looking for?" As an afterthought, and with a bit of hesitancy, she adds, "Proof?"

"What?" He looks back at her again, brows furrowed.

She shrugs. "I don't know. I thought maybe you were waiting to see if it was real and not a delusion you had the other night, when you met the new..." She hesitates as she chooses her next word. "...the new kid," she finally says, avoiding the use of _Robin_ , or any of his usual nicknames, and therefore not actually stating that someone else is now filling Dick's old pixie boots.

"Maybe," Dick says. "I...don't know. I-" He sighs heavily. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

Batgirl grabs the edge of her cape and drapes it around Dick's shoulders, letting her arm then fall at his waist. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry," she says softly.

"What about? You have nothing to be sorry for."

"You know what I mean." She sighs. "For luring you to that rooftop, and--"

"Not your fault," Dick argues. " _He_ put you up to it. I understand that now, it's all right."

"Thanks." She tightens her arm around him. "Come on, _Nightwing_ , I'll take you home."

He snorts at that. "Like I said, I don't have anywhere to go..."

"I know," she says, and she stands up, holding out a hand to him. "Come on, I'll take you home."

Understanding lights up his eyes. "Oh."

He stands up and they both jump off the wall then walk a few paces to where her Batcycle is parked, behind a bush. She hands him a helmet and puts one on herself.

"Thanks," he says. There's a hesitant pause, and then he finally adds, "It's nice to know I haven't lost my entire family."

Batgirl's heart tightens a little bit at his words. She wants to tell him that he hasn't lost a thing and that family bonds - that particular family's especially - are much too tough to be broken so easily, but she's pretty sure that he wouldn't believe her.

Instead, she makes the one promise she knows she can keep. "You can never lose me," she says before flipping the helmet's visor closed and hopping onto the Batcycle.

He hops on as well and wraps his arms around her waist. His grip is tighter than needs to be, but she doesn't say a word, knowing there's meaning behind the gesture. Instead, she gets the Batcycle's engine running and they head off into the night.

=> End.


End file.
